The number of service vehicles equipped with telematics technology will rise to 25 million globally by the end of 2019, representing a penetration rate of 30%, according to a new study from ABI Research.

The market-research company says take-up is being driven by regulatory and service compliance demands and as companies look to preserve their shrinking profit margins.

Companies are now required to ensure they store accurate details of hours worked by mobile workers, with regulators concerned about long days and risky working practices.
Moreover, rising fuel prices are continuing to put pressure on organizations whose profit margins are already wafer-thin.

“Key solutions deployed by service companies are typically fleet management solutions, with driver behavior as an important add-on coupled with a mobile workforce management solution,” said Gareth Owen, a principal analyst at ABI Research. “These are available in varying levels of complexity and are becoming increasingly sophisticated with most telematics service providers offering these solutions in partnerships with specialist software companies.”

According to ABI Research, vehicle diagnostics and service maintenance solutions have also been deployed to a lesser extent, with the major providers including Trimble, Telogis (Aliso Viejo, CA, USA), Masternaut (Leeds, UK), Fleetmatics (Waltham, MA, USA), Teletrac (Garden Grove, CA, USA) and TomTom (Amsterdam, Netherlands).

“At present, many companies rely on manual scheduling and management reporting which depend on paper records and the potential for strategic business improvement is limited,” said Owen. “A state-of-the-art mobile workforce management system can monitor all workers in real-time and help a company manage its operations dynamically, ensuring compliance with rules and regulations as well as providing managers with important metrics on every worker and vehicle.”